G20: India concerned on black money, rich nations' monetary policies

New Delhi: With Finance Minister Arun Jaitley reacting on Monday to media reporting names of Indian account holders in HSBC bank's Swiss branch, Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha has strongly advocated the fast implementation of automatic exchange of tax information globally, within the agreed time-frame.

"This would help India trace transactions of money illegally earned or stashed in foreign banks without paying appropriate taxes in the countries where those transactions took place," Sinha told a meeting of the G20 nations' finance ministers and central bank governors in Istanbul held on February 9-10, on official release said.

At the G20 Brisbane summit last November, leaders have endorsed a new global transparency standard by which more than 90 jurisdictions will begin automatic exchange of tax information, using a common reporting standard by 2017-2018.

India has no official estimates of illegal money stashed away overseas, but the unofficial ones range from $466 billion to $1.4 trillion.

Sinha also expressed concern over the monetary policies of a number of developed countries including members of the G20, the Finance Ministry said.

He called for installing an effective mechanism to deal with negative spillovers that may arise due to such policies or even their unexpected and disorderly withdrawal in future, the statement added.